From the first moment I first went online in 1996, forums were the main place to hang out. In fact the very first thing I did was join an online forum run by the Greek magazine "PC Master" so I could directly to my favourite game reviewers (for me it was Tsourinakis, for those old [...]
  • De_Narm@lemmy.worldEnglish
    741·
    1 month ago

    While I do agree with the problems identified, I can’t help but think they also made forums a lot better. Due to the lower discoverability and higher effort to actually join communities felt more personal. You interacted with smaller groups and came to know specific people. I still have friends from back then.

    On larger platforms, I never had that. Even lemmy, which is small in comparison has enough people that I barely even think about specific users. Let alone speak with them on a personal level.

    • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      513·
      1 month ago

      That’s a double-edged knife. yes it feels closer and personal, but it also breeds inside groups and cliques. I’ve been turned away from multiple forums because I was too ASD to fit in with their culture but there was no other space to discuss it. And this can go much much worse than just a culture-fit. Not to mention that if that forum becomes too popular, that culture is anyway lost.

      However using lemmy there’s the best of both worlds. You can still keep your instance small enough so that you know your local users, but also be able to interact with the larger community without the extra effort I explained. For example there’s instances out there like beehaw and hexbear which through have managed to retain their own culture and standards even while federated.

      • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        241·
        1 month ago

        Hard agree. I would also like to add that I think a lot of people remember forums a lot better than they were. Federation keeps admins and mods in check, these features act as checks and balances on instances

        *Nothing personal ofc db0 you run an awesome instance.

    • tiramichu@lemm.eeEnglish
      19·
      1 month ago

      I had so many good times on forums back in the day.

      The personal nature of them was great for being social and making friends, but it was also good for the quality of the content for and user behaviour too.

      When everyone recognises you and remembers your past behaviour, people put effort into creating a good reputation for themselves and making quality posts. It’s like living in a small village versus living in a city.

      The thought of being banned back then genuinely filled people with dread, because even if you could evade it (which many people couldn’t as VPNs were barely a thing) you’d lose your whole post history and personal connection with people, and users did cherish those things.